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Shared fishing rights in the EU has traditionally been a deal breaker for both Iceland and Greenland to join.
by thomasahle 2y ago
Shared fishing rights in the EU has traditionally been a deal breaker for both Iceland and Greenland to join.
- pornel 2y agoIt's a touchy topic throughout the EU. "They're stealing our fish!" gets voters riled up, even in countries where the fishing industry is economically insignificant and/or unprofitable.
- RandomThoughts3 2y agoWasn’t that mostly a UK thing? I don’t think I have heard fishing rights mentioned since Brexit.
- jorvi 2y agoNL fishing fleet has been modernized twice over. First cleaner engines, then electric pulse fishing (not nearly as bad as dragnet fishing). French fishers don’t want to make the investments into their fleet, so they harassed French politicians until those spiked the pulse fishing research permits. This had the by-effect of (nearly) bankrupting the Dutch fishing fleet. So no, fishing industry fights are not just an UK thing.
- throwaway2037 2y agoAre there any countries where the fishing industry is unprofitable? I don't know any in Europe.
- troad 2y agoFisheries are a significant part of Iceland's economy, though. Well-off European states with lots of sea (Norway, Iceland, Greenland, the UK) are disproportionately likely to reject EU membership due to the Common Fisheries Policy. It's too bad that the EU failed to recognise, way back in the EEC days, that having all these countries in the EU was far more important than some fish. (And just wait to see what a huge problem the Common Agricultural Policy is going to be for Ukrainian membership.)
- toyg 2y agoUkrainian membership will hopefully never happen (unless Ukraine actually shapes up into a modern country first). Without the war the process would never have gone as far as it has already.
- rswail 2y agoWhat makes you think that the reforms that have been going on since the war began aren't evolving Ukraine into a "modern" country similar to Romania, or Bulgaria, or Slovakia, or any of the post-Soviet members?
- troad 2y agoNot OP, but I think there's a valid argument about how "modern" those countries are. It's generally accepted that Romania and Bulgaria were let into the EU somewhat early, mainly for geopolitical reasons (foreclosing Russian influence there, cutting off Russia from the West Balkans). They are countries that continually lie on the tail end of every EU statistic, and have relatively unstable domestic politics and rule of law. Personally, I'd like to see Ukraine in the EU asap, but I'd also like the EU reformed into a democratic federation, such that the equivalent of the FBI has meaningful authority to investigate and prosecute corruption and rule of law irregularities in member states like Ukraine and Bulgaria.
- rswail 2y agoEntirely agree on what you would like to see. My point is that Ukraine is no worse than any of those nations, so admitting them to the EU is hardly going to affect the EU in any bad way. Integration would be difficult on the agricultural front, but is something that the EU has been dealing with since inception. One of the "benefits" of the war and the Ukrainian diaspora throughout Europe is that they will be able to integrate much faster than the previous Balkan and Balkan-adjaent countries as integration into Schengen would be able to be rapid. Ukraine's engineering, mining, and agricultural industries would bring major advantages to the EU as a Union, diversifying engineering from dependence on Germany, and bringing broadscale agricultural efficiencies to the EU as well.
- erk__ 2y agoGreenland did actually join, but they left again.